The American Institute of Certified Tax Coaches has a neat graphic of the Republican presidential candidates' tax proposals. Three want to impose a flat tax, that would of course massively benefit the rich. In a similar vein, six would seek not just to lower the estate tax, but eliminate it altogether (alas, a standard position in their party). Because the estate tax already has a very large exemption built in (currently, it's 5 million for an individual), it only affects the most wealthy individuals, and even they can still pass on a tremendous amount of wealth. So, most of the Republican field favors measures that would simultaneously massively benefit the most rich and make the deficit they claim to care about so intensely... much worse. (Note that this chart still counts Michele Bachmann, who only recently dropped out, but not Herman Cain, who also proposed a flat tax, lowering the corporate tax rate, and eliminating the estate tax.)
Most likely, none of this is news to any regular readers, but head over to check out the whole graphic. (Hat tip to Blue Gal, who's running MBR this week.)
Estate taxes are a very old concept, arguably the most progressive part of our tax system, and one of the few remaining bulwarks against complete plutocracy in America. There are many reasons to oppose the Republican Party as it currently stands, but the almost uniform commitment of its leaders to immoral and irresponsible policies in the taxation/fiscal/economic realm, and their decades-long bad faith on such issues, is certainly way up there.
Update 1/5/12:Anne Laurie at Balloon Juice has more on Romney's tax proposals. In a huge shock, Romney, the richest of all the candidates by a long shot, proposes giving himself another huge tax break (and raising taxes slightly on the poor).
As a few people have noted, they're really all cartoon villains at heart, aren't they?
It's hard to keep track of all the atrocious examples of whining by the rich and entitled, although comparing raising their taxes to Hitler invading Poland still deserves special status.
This American Life, which is always good, aired a great episode for 9./24/10, "Crybabies." If nothing else, listen to the first segment, because it superbly documents this appalling mentality of persecution by some of the most privileged:
Act One. Wall Street: Money Never Weeps.
Ira with Planet Money economics correspondent Adam Davidson on why—even after everything President Obama has done to save Wall Street, actions which have led to record profits and bonuses—Wall Street seems ungrateful. Adam and producer Jane Feltes head out to a Wall Street bar where they're told by three finance guys that there's no reason to thank the President for saving their jobs. Planet Money is a co-production of This American Life and NPR News. (14 minutes)
The cognitive dissonance is really pretty impressive. The Wall Street guys they talk to claim both that the government had to bail out Wall Street, and that they weren't helped. As Ira Glass observes, "At no point will they cop to the point that they benefited from the government's actions."
Tax policy shouldn't be driven solely by vindictiveness. Taxing the rich fairly – which would mean at a much higher rate – is good, even essential, policy. It's also good politics. However, considering there's been a vicious, callous class war waged by a significant number of the rich on the bottom 80% of America, turnaround would be more than fair play. And if one was tempted to think that important economic and fiscal policies somehow shouldn't be enacted because the rich and wealthy are so tremendously nice and caring as a class already, listening to these tremendously self-entitled assholes should kill that notion pretty quickly.
(The same epsiode ends with a darkly comic fable from David Sedaris. It reminded me of an old Brecht aphorism, actually, but to quote it would spoil the story.)
Austan Goolsbee (Chair of the Council of Economic Advisers at the White House) does a great job here explaining the difference between the Democratic and Republican tax plans:
I would have liked him to go more into detail, or mention that extending the Bush tax cuts for the richest 2% of Americans is estimated to cost close to 700 billion in the first decade alone, and more after that. But still, this is very well done. It's brief, accurate and clear. The White House and the congressional Dem leadership should do much, much more of this, especially on economic and fiscal issues.
(Incidentally, the YouTube comments are pretty frightening. The internet factor undoubtedly increases the crackpot factor. But while there have always been zealots and idiots who feel that progressive taxation is theft, and even bigger crazies who feel that all taxation is theft, it's disturbing to hear such opinions so often, and with so little pushback.)
C&L has a little more, and The Washington Post provided the same information in this chart:
All this is why it's unconscionable that the Democrats chose to adjourn without taking a vote on the middle class tax cuts. Despite it being good policy, and good politics, they didn't. I can only conclude it was a mix of gutlessness and corruption. Currently, we have one party, the Republicans, who are unabashedly, recklessly, nihilistically plutocratic, and another party, the Democrats, who are partially so. However, while the Democrats are disappointing, we've seen the dire effects of Reaganomics over the past 30 years, and the reckless Reaganomics of the Bush era created "the worst [decade] for the U.S. economy in modern times."
Apart from a few apostates, Republican politicians split into two camps. Camp One believes in funneling money to the rich, railing against spending and the deficit in Washington, and hypocritically taking credit for government largesse in their home states. Camp Two believes in funneling money to the rich, railing against spending and the deficit in Washington, but also actually believes in destroying the social safety net and other essential government programs. In other words, they're all plutocrats (or plutocrat suck-ups), and they're all reckless and nihilistic. However, they vary somewhat in their level of evil and crazy. Eric Cantor and most of the GOP leadership falls in Camp One, while dishonest Randian zealot Paul Ryan falls in Camp Two. The tea party rank and file, most of whom aren't that bright or honest, mostly fall into Camp One. They say they want to slash government programs, but they don't really want the ones that benefit them touched. The tea party political candidates and master puppeteers (Dick Armey and the rest) mostly fall into Camp Two. The candidates are primarily sincerely crazy zealots, while Armey and his fellow wealthy "men of the people" are pure, conniving, I'll-screw-my-country-over-for-a-buck evil.
Bernie Sanders and some other members of the Democratic caucus understand all this. It's ridiculous that all of them don't, and aren't fighting back against it – but then, it's utterly disgraceful that the conservatives (the Blue Dogs and the entire Republican Party) favor policies that screw over 80% of their own constituents. I've said it before, but if both parties merely competitively pandered to the middle class, America would be in immensely better shape.
In any case, I hope Goolsbee and the White House continue with these videos. They should have started months or years ago, frankly. The Democrats have essentially ceded the ground on these economic issues for decades (as Digby's often noted), and accepted the dangerous lie that Reaganomics have benefited America as a whole. But well done on this video. This sort of thing is much needed, so keep them coming.
